Renaming Material groups in Poser

I wondering if it's possible to rename existing material groups in Poser? (I have Poser Pro 11). This line from the manual makes me think it might be possible

I have figured out how to create brand new groups, sort of. It seems to only want to do this for figures, not props. I'm creating dynamic clothing items in Marvelous Designer, and when I bring the OBJ files into Poser I get material names like this:

Not terrible, but not pretty either. And if I forgot a step along the way I just get the numbers without even the names. I know how to do this in other programs like Blender, but I was just wondering if there was a way I could do this in Poser without having to bring my OBJ files into Blender just to rename the groups and then exporting again as a new OBJ for poser.

You can make new materials in the grouping tool and re-assign the facets to that new material.
(make new group, use 'add material' to select polygons now assigned to CrappyName. Then use 'assign material' to assign them to your new 'WellFormedName' material. Delete polygons form group, do next material, etc, then finally delete group.)

It leaves you with material entries with crappy names you do not use anymore. For reasons best known to Herself lady Poser does not have it within herself to allow you to clean up.

It's best to get the material names sorted before Poserizing (It's a word now!), Poserizing the content. A lot of artists will run the OBJ through UV mapper or UV Mapper Pro to clean up the material and geometry groups.

You can't rename material groups in Poser. You can create new groups with the better names. With the grouping tool Create a temporary geometry group. Add all the facets from the "bad" material name. Then Assign the facets to the new material name. The problem is the ghost material will still exist in the scene. That's why it's better to sort it out first.

Thanks guys. I was afraid that I was going to have to make new groups and leave the bad names behind. Sounds like it is better to just do it outside of Poser. I was mostly hoping for a short cut when I forget a step.

Especially since I've figured out the mystery of when MD will and won't keep my material names. Seems that if you've reopened the file the names just become mystery numbers. If you retype the names of your fabrics they will save out, although often with the mystery numbers after it. You can actually see in the screen shot I put up there, Material9307 was the original base of my garment that I'd been working on for a while. Everything else I had divided up and added later so it still kept those names. Sort of.

Before I Import an object made in Marvelous designer, I rename the materials in UVmapper pro, and make seperate groups for it which I can use in the poser clothroom, Say I have a cloth made of two different materials like cotton and leather, I make two groups of it because their simulation behaviour is different. You can also make a template map in UVmapper, for texturing. Once you export the obj you get the right materials names and the old ones are deleted,

@eclark1849 :p Where are my Hivewire smilies when I need them?! Okay I do remember that now. To be fair though I was asking if I could do it in Poser, not what to do when Blender made mystery material groups.

@gadgetgirl True enough, and to be fair, I still haven't figured out why Blender is doing it in the first place. But TextEdit and Note pad are your friends. As for Poser, I've been using it since version 2 and I STILL can't understand the Grouping tool. Frankly, it's useless to me.

@eclark1849 I actually have a program called Sublime Text 2 which I prefer for messing around in poser type files. It has a great side view that shows you what the next several pages look like. You can't actually read the text, but you can see the shape of it, and it makes it easy to skip past long lists of vertices, or to find the next bracket paragraph when the search function alone won't get you were you need to be.

As for the grouping tool, I feel like it works great inside the Setup Room, but seems to be nerved otherwise. I've never been able to get it to change a grouping for me on a figure unless I'm in the Setup Room.

Material zone names are in 2 places. The obj file and the cr2/pp2/hr2. (Almost forgot the hair)

When you create the obj file, you would also create the vertex groups and the material zones.
=> These are all saved in the obj file.

When you load a new object file in Poser, (File => import => Wavefront obj file) these vertex groups and material zones are read in memory from the obj file. => Textures too if you have the corresponding mtl and texture files.

Then you create a prop or a figure using the setup or fitting room => This adds the bones that have to be like the vertex groups you made in the obj file.
Example one => hip - abdomen - chest
Example two => hip - waist - abdomen - chest (and so on)

Each group requires the corresponding bone. (This is the basis anyway)

Then you add the materials in the material room. (Node setup and textures)

When you save?

The vertex groups and bones go together to bend the figure/prop/hair.

The material zones are initially copied over from the obj file, and the cr2/pp2/hr2 adds the texture/node setup.

The material zones are now in 2 places : In the object file, and in the cr2/pp2/hr2